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Quetta, Pakistan
Tuesday, Oct 04, 2005

Dust-n-Dirt

David Murray
2007-02-23 22:05:24

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We jumped on the bus and found our positions. All Westeners down the back. As our bags were being hoisted onto the roof, I asked to be moved, but they just ignored me and moved. The preferential treatment I had received outside was going nowhere on this bus. Just before the bus took off, the driver let loose on his horn. It went for about five minutes. If it had gone on any longer, I was about to wonder down and rip the fucking thing off and jam it up his arse. The bus was full !!! Off we drove and all around me, as usual, the talk was cricket. There was no stopping these guys. After a couple of hours, I pretended I was asleep, and it all went quiet.

I was awoken by the horns again. It was near eleven and it was dinner time. My Pakistani mates made me sit with them and talk cricket, again. I love cricket, but even I was getting bored. A quick dinner, followed by more horns, and we were off again. I grabbed Lucy's head scarf and wrapped it around my eyes. This was the only way I could get to sleep here !!!

The roads had been shit all night, but now they were worse, plus I had the horn going again. I ripped off the scarf to see what the fuck was the problem and found out that we had actually arrived in Quetta. We jumped off, Leo the Czech scaled up and grabbed our bags. There was dust, dirt, flies and dogs everywhere. It was so different to Iran. Iran was so clean. I want to go back !!! I said a quick goodbye to all of my cricket homies, and then we were off.We grabbed a rickshaw and found a hotel. It was luxury. $6.50 and we had satellite TV. We had a quick catch up on the news and then we were off exploring. There were markets everywhere. All different varieties. Electrical, cloth, shoes, goats heads, you name it, they were there. It was nearly so Asian, but so Indian, even though I have never been to India, I imagined it to be like this. But just like the bus station, the whole town was covered in dust, dirt, flies and dogs everywhere. We made our way down to the train station and bought some train tickets for the following day. Our first night train. So romantic !!! Well, we hoped it would be as we had purchased second class economy seats !!! As we walked around, we discovered a bit of old Indian history. We came across a Gurdwara which is a Sikh temple, for all you non Sikhs out there. It was locked up and we could not get in. Pity. It would have been good to compare it to the Mosques we had seen here, as they ere quite small and rundown. As night fell, all the food stalls came out. We sat down with the locals and gave our stomachs a going over. Chicken and chapati. Chicken, killed and cooked in front of us, whilst the feral chapati was also baked in front of us !!! After a superb dinner, we settled down in front of our satellite TV and watched a couple of movies. What a way to go. All we needed was some beers, and life would have been great !!!

Up early, we had another quick wander around the markets, before it was time to jump in our rickshaw and make our way to the station. We had stocked up on our supplies, loads of samosas !!! Being our first time on a train here, we arrived nice and early, just in case the train was running on time. Only time would tell.